


The Day Breaks Gently

by EudociaCovert



Series: The Best Path [9]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friendship, Gen, Honest Conversations, Plotting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 06:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20774192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert
Summary: Jet does his best not to squander his second chance at winning Shi over. Part 9 of 'The Best Path' series.





	The Day Breaks Gently

Jet arrives at the gate first. It curdles a bit to find the mouth of the street nearly empty, a niggling doubt gaining traction the longer he waits. Shi could, he admits to himself, stay away. He could decide to cut his losses and move on, and to count Jet among them. That surprise clash on the roof of a barn in the middle of the night could very well have been the moment their paths finally diverged for good.

“Jet.”

And then Shi’s there, walking towards him. It feels more real, seeing him in the daylight. He looks good; a few weeks in one place has allowed the hollows of his face to fill out a bit, and his skin to hold a bit of color. His wrist is healed, unbound.

“Hey,” Jet breathes out, carefully casual. I was so afraid, he thinks, that I’d never see you again. 

Once behind the wall of Ba Sing Se Jet’s hopes of coming across Shi, of _finding_ him again, had withered to dust within days. Jet had never seen this many people in one place before, and singling one out of the ever moving, ever growing clamor of life he was now constantly surrounded by seemed like an impossibility. Then he’d been so busy keeping Longshot and Smellerbee fed, and together, and some version of _happy_, and keeping himself from doing anything to compromise that, that he hadn’t had much time to mourn the lost hope.

It feels like a sign, finding Shi again.

Shi, who’s watching him now through too light eyes, stubbornly static as the occasional passerby weaves around them.

“C’mon,” Jet says. “I’ve got a place we can talk.”

Shi nods curtly and falls in at Jet’s side when he begins to walk, just to his left.

“So,” Jet clears his throat, watching the other boy from the corner of his eye. “Has your farmer noticed?”

“Yes. I got fired,” Shi states, voice abrupt and dry.

Jet winces. He wonders if he should apologize, but a glance at his companion finds a wry twist of a smile on Shi’s lips. Jet isn't really that sorry anyway. “We’ll make it right,” he promises instead. Shi nods again, a subtle tension bleeding from his shoulders.

No doubt. No questions. It feels good to know the work he did to gain Shi's trust hasn't been for nothing. It feels like the first breath after winning a fight.

Jet leads Shi off the main streets, and into an aging but solid building. The hall is almost uncomfortably skinny, and full of the muted sounds of life happening behind closed doors. At its end is a nondescript door, which Jet opens. An even thinner staircase is revealed, leading downward, steep and obviously the work of earth-bending. Shi pauses for a moment, taking it in.

“There are rules about what kind of houses you can build here,” Jet finds himself explaining, partly because he _still_ doesn’t understand why living in a city means someone else gets to tell you what kind of _house you can have_. “A lot of Lower-Ring landlords have hideaway units for rent like this, if you know how to ask. They’re small, usually. But cheap.” Better than sleeping on the street. Their first few days had been rough.

Shi follows him down the steps, past a few roughly hewn doorways covered with heavy curtains, to the left. Jet slides a curtain to the side and waves Shi past him.

The space is cramped, of course, and obviously lived in. There’s a straw sleeping mat leaning against the wall beneath a makeshift hammock. Their kitchen is a pair of clay pots, three bowls, and a pitcher, nestled in a corner next to a round hole leading up towards the outside. A bag of rice sits beside the pots, barely half full. Longshot’s bow rests against the wall, next to Smellerbee’s leather breastplate. Clothes hang from a length of rope fixed high between the two walls. There’s a sort of window in the ceiling, a small round point of daylight.

Jet sits himself down by the sleeping mat. Shi takes a bit more time looking around before he joins Jet on the floor, sitting with legs folded and back ramrod straight. It’s so very easy to imagine that maybe Shi’s clothes also hang above them, maybe his Dao are resting beside Longshot’s bow, maybe he belongs here.

“So?” Shi asks. “The rice?”

“The best way I can think of,” Jet starts slowly, “is to follow your advice.”

Shi blinks at him, brow furrowing. “My advice?”

“The nobles in the inner ring,” Jet explains. “They’ve got so much more than they need. They must be storing it somewhere. That’s where we get your rice from.”

“Why can’t we just steal Farmer An’s rice back?” Shi asks, frowning.

“Besides the fact that Mu will probably figure out it’s me, the one who let the guard slip past, if the location of the safe house is suddenly compromised?” Jet leans forward, as earnest as he can make himself. “His methods might be… a bit questionable, but people here depend on him. That rice is going to feed a lot of families. A lot of kids like us. I’ll help you make up the difference, but that rice is needed. We can still secure your reputation. Maybe get you your job back, if you still want it.”

“It’s not about wanting it.” Shi looks down. “I need it. The food. A place to stay.”

“You can stay here,” Jet offers.

Shi looks up, narrows his eyes.

Gently, gently. Jet loses his smile, relaxes his shoulders. “Shi. What you told me before, about why you had to be alone. What happened to you, who you’re running from.” Better not to use the name _Azula_, not when Shi had uttered it that day in the forest with such deep fear. “I didn’t agree, but I respected it. Didn’t I?”

Shi watches him, frowning as his eyes skip around Jet’s face, before nodding slowly.

“Right. But that was out _there_. That was before I’d seen the _wall_. A wall _those_ people have _never_ breached.”

Something dark and amused flits over Shi’s face before it dies into a worn and enduring expression. “Just because it hasn’t doesn’t mean it _can’t_,” he says.

Okay. That’s workable. “Then stay with us until the wall falls,” Jet purposes. Shi tries to look away, but Jet moves with him, unwilling to lose eye contact. “If this is really about protecting us and not about punishing yourself, you'll have nothing to worry about until then.”

For a long terrible moment every muscle in Shi’s body tightens up, and Jet is sure he’ll get up and leave. Slowly, he relaxes again. “Help me with the rice,” He says. “And… we’ll see.”

Jet grins, wide enough to hurt. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“Yeah.” Shi turns his face away, uncomfortable. “It’s… it’s good to see you too. Are… where are Smellerbee and Longshot? Do they…”

“They don’t know that you’re here yet.” They’d been asleep when Jet had gotten back, and he’d been asleep when they left this morning. It hadn’t felt like the time to say something anyway, especially when Jet wasn’t sure Shi would even show up at the gate. “They’re out looking for work.”

“They don’t work with you? With Mu?”

“No. Mu is… a compromise.” Jet sighs, sinking back against the sleeping mat as he searches for the best way to explain. He feels the urge to lie, to brush it off, but somewhere along the way Shi’s become more than a kid he’s trying to save. They’re past the point of lying; at least here and now.

“Ba Sing Se was supposed to be a new start. A place to turn over a new leaf. And I want to, but this city is- these people are-” Jet strangles his own voice, hearing his frustration ringing through the space between them. In a more measured tone, he continues. “No one here talks about the war. There are _laws_ against it. There are people here who don’t know there _is_ a war. And I can’t do that, just… pretend. Everything I _am_ is because of the damn war, they can’t just wave it away. So, when someone asks where we’re from I let Smellerbee do the talking, and at night I work with Mu until that doesn’t feel like a betrayal of everything, _everyone, _we lost.” Jet breathes in, forces himself to relax. “It’s a work in progress.”

“That’s… that’s rough,” Shi says, stilted but understanding.

“Yeah.” It’s quite possible that Shi, with his white and blue mask hidden away and the ugly consequences of war burned into his face, really does understand.

“Farmer An,” Shi starts. Stops. Starts again. “Farmer An’s been that for me. He… gave me something to do. Something simple. And _right_.”

Jet smiles, slow, and wonders how much of the fondness in his chest makes it to his face. “Then let’s get Farmer An his rice back.”

-

They take the monorail. It’s still a novelty to Jet but Shi is unimpressed, or seems so at least.

When silence hangs between them it’s comfortable. The cloth of their sleeves brush and Shi doesn’t scoot away. Jet points out certain buildings and landmarks, sharing what he’s learned about them in low tones. They’ve both been in Ba Sing Se about the same amount of time, but Jet’s done a lot more exploring within that period. Shi nods along with what he’s told, not particularly interested but not bored either.

The differences are stark when they reach the Middle Ring. Jet wheedles his way into a quick job at the monorail station delivering packages.

“Makes it easier to blend in,” he explains, stacking parcels into Shi’s arms high enough to hide his companion’s disgruntled expression. “The busier you look the fewer questions people ask.”

They make a good team. Jet takes the packages to the doors and engages the homeowners in meaningless chitchat while Shi ducks around back, finding out if, and where, they store food. They board the train when the sun begins to sink with some detailed knowledge, a rough plan, and a bit of coin in their pockets.

“We should wait a week or so before acting,” Jet muses. “So, they don’t connect us to what happened."

“That’s a long time to wait,” Shi comments.

“It’ll take that long anyway to figure out how to move that much rice,” Jet points out. “We’ll get it done. Just need to use a little patience.”

“Patience,” Shi repeats, his voice so displeased Jet laughs without meaning to.

He leads Shi back home, down the stairs and to the room. Jet sweeps the curtain to the side and ducks in, a grin breaking across his face at what he sees.

“Hey Jet,” Smellerbee greets, sprawled across the sleeping mat. Longshot, pouring water from the pitcher into a bowl, nods at him. “What has you looking so happy?”

Shi ducks into the room behind him, careful, holding himself with a wary but gentle precision. Longshot sets the pitcher down with a thump, and Smellerbee sits up all at once, eyes wide.

“Hey,” he says, voice just a bit rough with hidden emotion. “Shi here.”

Smellerbee stands slowly. Two steps and they’re toe to toe, eyes locked. She sways forward and rests her forehead against Shi’s chest.

“Are you staying?” She asks, quiet and achingly hopeful.

Shi opens his mouth, probably to explain about the rice and Jet’s part in things, but shuts it again. He lifts a hand, places it on the back of her head before turning his head to meet Jet’s stare.

It leaves Jet wrong-footed for a moment. Shi is searching for something, and Jet doesn’t know what it is, what to give him. Maybe he finds it anyway, because something new, wonderful and terrifying, takes over his face; something like acceptance, or fear. Shi firms his jaw.

“Until the wall falls,” he promises.


End file.
